The Effect of Treated Waste Water by Binary Irrigation on Growth and Yield of Maize

Abstract

A field experiment is conducted to determine water requirements for mays crop for the fall season of 2013 in the field of Zafaraniyah Station – Ministry of Agriculture, 30 km south of Baghdad, 44.4˚ longitude, 33.14 latitude and 34 m elevation. The experiment is designed according to RCBD with three replicates and treatments are distributed randomly on experimental plots. The field is divided into experimental units. The experiment consisted five irrigation treatments: T1 (100 wastewater), T2 (75% wastewater +25% river water), T3 (50% waste water + 50% river water), T4 (25% wastewater + 75% river water) and T5 (100% river water). There is a significant increment in plant growth and yield, where plant height, leaf area, weight of 1000 grains, grains yield and grains yield per individual plant increased with increasing mixture ratio, the higher height is in T1 (100% wastewater) of 1.86 m and the lower height is 1.74 m in T5 (100% river water) with increment ratio of 2.29, 4.02, 6.32 and 6.89% for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. Higher leaf area was 0.58 m2 at T1 and the lower is 0.51 m2 at T5 with increment ratio of 3.77, 5.14, 12.58 and 13.30 for T4, T3, T2 and T1, respectively. Grain weight increase with increasing mixture ratio, the higher weight is 265.3 g at T1 and the lower is 235.3 g at T5 with increment ratio of 3.82, 6.12, 10.07 and 12.75% for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. The higher yield is 9.64 tons.h-1 at T1 and the lower is 7.63 tons.h-1 at T5 with increment ratio of 3.80, 9.44, 12.71 and 26.74% for T4, T3, T2 and T1, respectively. Grain yield per individual plant increase with the increasing mixture ratio, where the higher yield was 145.19 g at T1 and the lower was 114.56 g at T5 with increment ratio of 3.81, 9.44, 12.72 and 26.74% for T4, T3, T2 and T1, respectively. Results of the effect of treated wastewater on plant height and leaf area agree with those obtained for green canopy cover percent (CC) through applying AquaCrop program, where the higher CC was 81% at T1 and the lower CC is 77% at T4 (25% treated wastewater + 75% river water) and T5 at planting period.